Cutting off the head of the snake...

[Thothie]

FROM THE TOP:

In light of recent events, and the years of the same leading up to it, we've come to a consensus that J-M must be banned from these forums and from the game itself. The constant working against the developers and finding every possible way to cheat the game came to a head when he went past mere exploits and started cheating. We won't go into exactly how he cheated until the security hole has been sealed.

This has been a long time coming, as he has consistently gotten away with all manner of exploits and rallying his guild and other members of the community against the people who give their free time for this game. Any other person who did even a fraction of what he's done would have been punished long ago.

We will not tolerate this sort of behavior. If anyone is caught cheating, exploiting or generally using all their energy to work against the betterment of this game, they will be punished as well. This will not stand anymore.

If you advertise/help other to cheat, you too will be banned.

I really didn't want to do this... And I pleaded with the rest of the dev team to offer up some alternative for nearly two weeks straight, putting it off for as long as I could... But alas, I was outvoted, by far, and I must admit, it has been a long time coming. I also realize that, had we done this years ago, this game would be a LOT further along than it is now - and likely so would MSS, just by the shear overflow of expert developers we would have retained, never mind all the time we spent on the messes he spawned.

I'd love to say the damage is done, what's past is past, and there's nothing that can be done about it, but obviously, the damage continues to be done, so... I suppose, more than anything else, it's been my pussy footing around that let this drag on this long, fearing what he may do, coupled with, perhaps, a soft spot in my heart for the monster.

BoU is not being forcefully disbanded, however. We'll give them a chance to assign a new leader, and failing that, find a volunteer to pick up the torch over there.

You're free to b*tch about this, but keep it to THIS thread - I don't even want to see a hint of this drama cluttering up the other threads, save maybe BOU's, and even there, only insomuch as required to settle the leadership issues.

In honor of J-M's passing, I'll setup some balance and XP b*tch feast sticky threads that we'll allow even Team Whine to participate in (had one for XP around here somewhere, but seem to have lost it...)

I know I've used this too often lately, but...

 

[Foreman]

In the few years I've played this game, and the years prior when it was just MS... I'm sad that people can't just work together to make this a fun game. It sucks that people need to be banned and exploits need to be fixed. It sucks that leveling is harder now than it once was (due to exploits of course) and the new people have to suffer. It sucks that these new people give up before getting ~500 hp because many others BREEZED through 800+ hp on the biggest exploit that took like half a year to patch. It sucks that due to exploits new bosses do more dmg to compensate and kill ME in only a few hits when I have like 90% mitigation and 705 hp. It sucks that the only real map I can solo is the sky castle series yet I get more exp from Thornlands. It sucks that I can't even solo the last boss in the keep, and even if I do solo it, nothing drops because there is only one person the server.

In the months I've been in BoU, I'd like to point out at no point did I feel "rallied" by JM nor feel like he "rallied" other members from our guild. If anything, he said what many people were afraid or didn't care to say. He did what I see MOST of the community do and when I was around him he never shared how to do it (other than the whole Shard/Symbol nonsense that probably 99% of the community is opposed to.. actually I'd bet everybody in the community is opposed to it other than myself and some of the developers).

Since nobody else is around much ingame I'll be soloing what I can. Probably going to be spending most of my days on Thornlands waiting for another 10-50 hp beggar to come around to teach them the ropes only for them to give up in a few weeks.



EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it.. Most of, if not all, the "exploits" I've ever learned of I didn't learn from any BOU member.. That is one of the reasons why I joined their guild. 90% of the stuff that WAS in their hidden guild forum I already learned from other guilds / people in-game. It's rather sad.

 

[Keldorn]

I'd hate to be that guy, but if you can't solo level 20-ish maps like the_keep with a 705 hp character you're probably doing something wrong, and I've seen people get 500 hp in two weeks or less both this patch, and last patch.

There is a rather abrupt difficulty curve once you get to a certain point in MSC though, and once you hit that point nothing ingame really directly tells players how to dodge while attacking, when to retreat and heal, how to fight multiple monsters in a way that favors you, how to cooperate, or stuff like the logic behind greater maldora minions.

I have no idea how or if J-M cheated, but I hope that this decision was made based on solid evidence.

I can't speak directly for J-M, but from what he has said, I can say that he does not want any sort of giant sh!tstorm or flamewar against the devs to be started by this event.

 

[Foreman]

I can't speak directly for J-M, but from what he has said, I can say that he does not want any sort of giant sh!tstorm or flamewar against the devs to be started by this event.

I agree, and I'm not trying to start said event.

 

[zeus9860]

I would comment on this situation if a certain someone didn't request me to start a flamewar, which would likely happen if i did say anything. This is for the best, for everyone. So i'm shutting my mouth for once and avoid getting people into trouble. Like it was requested aswell.

Just got one other minor message to say, hope you guys (the devs) had your fun doing what you did, because there is alot of people who didn't.

 

[cartman-2000]

I'm sad that people can't just work together to make this a fun game.

Once you make enemies in this mod, they will most likely always be your enemy...

 

[zeus9860]

Once you make enemies in this mod, they will most likely always be your enemy...

Hey, i'm not the only one who thinks like this it seems! Like JM used to say...

 

[Echo717]

I've always thought the fshard system was silly

 

[Foreman]

...the whole Shard/Symbol nonsense that probably 99% of the community is opposed to.. actually I'd bet everybody in the community is opposed to it other than myself and some of the developers).

I've always though the fshard system was silly

Shard/Symbol nonsense that probably 99% of the community is opposed to..

*sigh*

Obviously my willpower is failing or I wouldn't be posting at all, and I'll try to ignore most of that as OT (nevermind how wrong it all is)... But I'll break down and harp on the Felewyn shard, as it is a good example of a set of exploits that have been spread in the name of "anti-dev justice".

The problem with the shards, is that, unlike most MMORPG's, we don't have a global active unique-item system. Thus we have this, yes, "retarded" system to try to minimize the number running about. As more and more people have found more and more ways around it, it has become more and more complex and retarded.

The idea is that there should be no more than 5 active Felewyn shards in the entire world at any given time, and that no single player should be able to acquire more than one, except through trade, and even acquisition of that one, shouldn't be guaranteed.

The problem is, certain people have decided it is their "God given right" to have at least one of every shard - preferably more, for additional trading. Said individuals have taken it a step further, and have decided it's everyone else's god given right as well.

So we keep coming up with more and more hacks to cut down on them, even going so far as to introduce the Unholy Blade, on which to dump extras, so we can get a more accurate gauge on just how much fail there is in our countermeasures.

It's more or less a trial item for the Apostle weapon system. Until we find a way to secure this system proper, we won't introduce any Apostle weapons.

...and that's just one of several ongoing battles between the devs and the hackers... Oh the drama.

The Lord(s) have spoken, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

 

[Thothie]

I've always thought the fshard system was silly

I think I already described the system as "retarded", but if we had a non-retarded way to do it, there'd only be five shards running about in any given six month period, so I suspect folks, sadly, would prefer the retarded method, to one that works as it should.

But that's by far the least offensive cheat that J-M opted to advertise this time around, even if it is the one he put the most effort into (I mean, spawning 100 of each related chest just to confirm the frequency, how do you even deal with that level of tenacity?) It's also one of the easier ones to repair - the others are going to take some fancier coding fixes, and a few I'm not sure we can do anything about at all, save by very close scrutiny of FN servers.

And, as MiB pointed out repeatedly, that alone, would have been enough to ban any other player, nevermind all the cheats he's advertised in the general forums over the years... And I really should have known this sort of thing was going on, given that he's been distributing cheat maps and memory editors, as far back as pre-Steam Master Sword, when he was the go-to-man for such things, and had a website dedicated to said (which he continued to host for two years after MSC's release).

I had always hoped he would grow up to use his considerable powers for good, instead of evil, but alas, he's had nearly seven years to do that, and it seems he hasn't really changed much in all that time. :\

In the months I've been in BoU, I'd like to point out at no point did I feel "rallied" by JM nor feel like he "rallied" other members from our guild.

BoU is still alive because he hasn't, for the most part, used his guild to recruit followers to his cause. Possible exception to that being the, fairly recent, activity of turning down petitions and kicking followers on the basis that they told the devs too much. This isn't a case like Muchadeen or TFL, where the guild became strictly a hacker guild (despite the crest descriptor), beyond the cheats spread in the subforums, but it nearly became that in recent months, and I suspect that part of the motivation amongst those that voted for the ban was a desire to avoid that happening.

Granted, I'm sure that motivation pales in comparison to all the patch delays, developer losses, and developer down time he's caused over the years - especially given that it'd be pretty easy to pin well over two years of developer down time, and wasted time, directly to his actions. (That's a year and half where the game was frozen in time, and at least six months of dealing with crap he stirred up to boot, nevermind everyone who left the team, citing him as a motivation, and in one or two cases, the sole motivation.)

So, despite having rallied against it so hard, I clearly understand the logic as to why this had to happen, and more so, as to why it should have been done a long, long time ago. I still don't like it, but who knows, maybe things will get back on track around here as a result, and some good will come of this yet. (pfft)

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

First of all, I think the language used this thread is deliberately deceptive. Branding JM a 'cheater' is a huge stretch. Secondly, banning JM for the specific things he was banned for sets an absurd precedent. You'd have to ban over half the community, maybe the entire community, for spreading and keeping secret all of these exploits that have taken you years to realize were there. protip: you should start this purge by banning every member of MSC's invisble community of azn people. Also, it's completely false to believe that JM is the reason why everyone in the community has been completely silent when it comes to exploits. In the 'Ye thread of XP balancing' you say at least one thing that demonstrates how completely naive you are in regards to how this game actually plays out in practice. However, I am reluctant to say anything because I know that a lot of people will be upset with me if I do (these people are not, btw, JM). Every single person in the community sees this comment, yet nobody is saying anything because if they do, you'll make the game more difficult for them. You are just using JM as a scapegoat because he is one of the most prominent members of the community. He isn't the problem, though. It's your guys' disconnect from the game itself that keeps you from realizing where exploits are and also keeps you guys from realizing how absolutely terrible/unworkable some of your ideas are (Forsuth the frosty at the wall and the Fshard quest being a few examples). If enough devs actually played this game you would not simply be nerfing items and xp. You would be outright removing some things not only for the sake of balance, but for the sake of quality control.

Third, in spite of all your talk about the driving away of developers, you have potentially driven away one of the best mappers that the small goldsource community actually has left. Maybe the devs just aren't aware that JM was working on a new lore map that, by your lax (nonexistent) standards, is ready to be populated and released, or maybe they don't care. It wouldn't surprise me much if you guys just didn't care, seeing as how it's better than Idemarks tower, but it's exponentially larger and has more coherent (not to mention creative) gameplay as well as a handful of quests embedded into the map (in other words, it's not a half assed pieces of crap).

every strike will stay on record so we know that you have done something wrong. If at anytime you want to clean your record you may.

The price is US $10, the price of a new steam account ID from steam. You will donate this money to the MS:C development team and then send me the receipt.

You may have been bad in the past but this way you can redeem yourself.

If someone like PiMpStA can have their bans lifted for a mere ten dollars, and seeing as how buying a map like Islesofdread2 would cost much more than ten dollars, it only seems reasonable that JM should at least be shown leniency. Since that will never happen (since some staff members hold grudges) JM should be unbanned when he completes *insert name of lore map here*. That map is worth a hell of a lot more than ten dollars. His continued presence in the goldsource community as a mapper in general transcends monetary value completely.

 

[The Man In Black]

This isn't just about his exploits. The fact that he has continued to use exploit after exploit and forbid people from talking about it is one thing. His working against the developers in nearly way is another. His hostility is yet another. The fact that he cheated (Not exploited, cheated) is the nail in the coffin. He has been given so very much leniency it is ridiculous. The guy got chance after chance after chance, and even after his last warning (that eventually led to his banning), he continued to play his copy of MS:C as entitled "MS:C - don't spread useful info".

As to him working on a map, when has he ever not been working on a map? We've heard story after story of maps that are about ready to be released. Even if it is the real thing this time, a single map (which people will undoubtedly beat and/or complain about eventually) is hardly worth the amount of trouble he causes.

 

[Foreman]

1.

In the months I've been in BoU, I'd like to point out at no point did I feel "rallied" by JM nor feel like he "rallied" other members from our guild.

BoU is still alive because he hasn't, for the most part, used his guild to recruit followers to his cause. Possible exception to that being the, fairly recent, activity of turning down petitions and kicking followers on the basis that they told the devs too much. This isn't a case like Muchadeen or TFL, where the guild became strictly a hacker guild (despite the crest descriptor), beyond the cheats spread in the subforums, but it nearly became that in recent months, and I suspect that part of the motivation amongst those that voted for the ban was a desire to avoid that happening.

Possible exception to that being the, fairly recent, activity of turning down petitions and kicking followers on the basis that they told the devs too much.

Honestly, it depends on how you look at it. If you look at it as someone, not even a guild member, telling supercoke something, then supercoke doing it himself (therefore *gasp* exploiting), then reporting it.. then yes we petitioned and kicked retards. Now, I run my mouth about sh!t yet I'm still in the guild (well, maybe not anymore..). Then again it's also about easy ways to level from 1-23 in like a day from doing what you're supposed to do and leveling legally. You guys just don't understand the whole "don't tell the devs anything" mindset is due to the fact that if anyone tells you a litch tongue is overpowered, and everyone carried around and used the litch tongue as a joke to make you think it is overpowerd, then the item gets nerfed. Whether it be saying a specific weapon that is a piece of sh!t and lying about it being good or talking about how thornlands is a good place to level past level 6, 99% of the community do not want you to say anything just due to the fact that the concept of saying anything period brings about nerfs.



Here's a post of JM even saying it on Jul 21, 2011 in the *Trading Post* topic:

OFFERING:
Unholy blade, brand new, A++ quality

WANT:
A really large amount of various rare items in return. Post your offers. Note: Two holy lances (for example) isn't nearly good enough.

NOTE:
I probably won't trade with people who assign "personal values" to items. Why? If someone assigns a personal value of, say, 270 to a High Elven Blade, and a personal value of only 3 to a Dwarven Axe, certain people might suspect that the High Elven Blade is vastly overpowered and this might have dire consequences.

tl;dr: Don't assign personal values to items because it is a great way to break the game.

Yeah he did it as a joke, but for real, it's a serious issue and we feel like the devs are oblivious to the concept of everyone and every guild keeping to themselves and shutting the hell up. Oh look and then on Jul 22, 2011 we have:

NOTE:
I probably won't trade with people who assign "personal values" to items. Why? If someone assigns a personal value of, say, 270 to a High Elven Blade, and a personal value of only 3 to a Dwarven Axe, certain people might suspect that the High Elven Blade is vastly overpowered and this might have dire consequences.

tl;dr: Don't assign personal values to items because it is a great way to break the game.

>_>

<_<

/me nerfs high elven blade...

Also, any item not rated will be nerfed.

Oblivious? I think so!




2.

Branding JM a 'cheater' is a huge stretch. Secondly, banning JM for the specific things he was banned for sets an absurd precedent.

I think there is some confusion as to just as what he was banned for. We've already banned several people for the things he was caught doing, so there is no precedent being set here. It wasn't any simple exploit, he was editing game files and outright cheating.

Hmm, editing game files. Let me look up the FN rules...

> WHAT IS [FN]?
[FN] (aka. “FuzNet”) is the defacto MS:C central character database that allows players to carry their characters from server to server. Its name is the result of the combination of facts that it is 1) Originally hosted by FuzzyFish, and 2) J-M has an odd sense of humor.

[FN] has since passed onto the hands of Blasto, but the name is kept to avoid confusion (and massive documentation re-writes).

> [FN] RULES?
Servers and players connected to Fuznet are required to follow certain rules.

Failure to follow these rules will result in character deletion and/or being banned from Fuznet.

THESE RULES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
- No cheating!
Thou shalt not cheat! This means no modifications to the game are allowed which alter game play. Most especially those that allow invulnerability, or spawning items, altering existing maps, or anything that in anyway aids in faster leveling (instant deletion). Excessive exploiting is also grounds for character deletion. Not all [FN] deletions require that you be caught - some anti-cheat measures are built into the game and will delete characters upon detecting cheats. Characters marked as cheaters cannot be restored!

- Approved [FN] maps only!
Thou shalt play not play on cheat maps! Thou shalt not test thine maps on [FN] be they cheatmaps or neigh! As of JAN2010, FN will disconnect any server with a non-approved map, violently.
If you need characters to test your own custom maps that you are designing, please PM the team on the forums.
(Use these on a listen server with server-side or client-side characters - instructions pending resurrection of Wiki.)

- Also, not a rule, but a matter of courtesy: please include the [FN] tag in your server name so people know you are connected!


> [FN] CHARACTER RESTORE
If your character becomes corrupted, deleted, is doing weird stuff, or you just pulled a King Arthur and accidentally lost your sword by tossing it into a lake, you can request a character restoration via the backup archives though the MS:C forum’s: FN Section.
Archives of all characters in the database are made four times a day. Keep this in mind when requesting character restoration, as you will likely lose some playtime / gold / xp / items. It is generally not worth restoring a character less than a few days old. You can be "rolled back" a maximum of 3 times per month.


> HOW DO I HOST AN [FN] SERVER?
If you are interested in hosting an [FN] dedicated server, please contact the team through the forums.


> WHAT CAN I DO IF I SPOT SOMEONE CHEATING?
The game will occasionally report that someone was cheating within a particular server recently. If you see a message of this sort, you can send the STEAM ID it provides through the forums. Their character will be examined and dealt with accordingly.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For more info: See the MASTER SWORD FORUMS

So I'm kinda curious, was this "cheaing" on a server connected to Fuznet? Or a non-FN server. The rules clearly state:

> [FN] RULES?
Servers and players connected to Fuznet are required to follow certain rules.

Summary:
It brings me back to my opening statement:

In the few years I've played this game, and the years prior when it was just MS... I'm sad that people can't just work together to make this a fun game.

 

[Sabre]

If it wasn't done on an FN server, we wouldn't have noticed it now, would we?

 

[Drathamus]

Drama.

 

[Thothie]

You guys just don't understand the whole "don't tell the devs anything" mindset is due to the fact that if anyone tells you a litch tongue is overpowered, and everyone carried around and used the litch tongue as a joke to make you think it is overpowerd, then the item gets nerfed.

How many item nerfs have there really been? Maybe four or five big ones in all of the game's history? After adding, what, nearly 100 items to this game over the last six years? Have there really been enough to justify this assumption or J-M's repeated requests that no one rate items or talk to the devs? Or any of his behavior? And sadly, Supercoke wasn't the only victim of that recent policy.

 

[Foreman]

You guys just don't understand the whole "don't tell the devs anything" mindset is due to the fact that if anyone tells you a litch tongue is overpowered, and everyone carried around and used the litch tongue as a joke to make you think it is overpowerd, then the item gets nerfed.

How many item nerfs have there really been? Maybe four or five big ones in all of the game's history? After adding, what, nearly 100 items to this game over the last six years? Have there really been enough to justify this assumption or J-M's repeated requests that no one rate items or talk to the devs? Or any of his behavior? And sadly, Supercoke wasn't the only victim of that recent policy.

Honestly, I have no idea.. as there was a 3 year period where I wasn't around at all. All I know is I posted one thing on the forums awhile back and it was proceeded with like 5 people who I recently played with in-game messaging me on steam to delete or edit my post so *blank* doesn't get nerfed. And another one was like a month ago when I posted something about green spiders and I was messaged by like 3 people telling me to remove it or *gasp* 70 exp green spiders don't get nerfed to being like 35 exp god forbid.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

CAN'T YOU SEE THIS IS TEARING US ALL APART!?

 

[Truewarrior]

Less nerfing, more buffing.
Fun > Grinding and getting 2 shot. Xp going down is fine, our survability, damage and being kept stunned,froze or whatever isn't what I call fun.


Anyway, I don't post very often, but aren't we supposed not to talk about in-game stuff on the forum? What is strong, what isn't and where they are? I am pretty sure Evaan made it pretty clear back then and that it was mentioned in the forum rules, but whatever.

I believe the game should be more noob friendly and more relax on small details like this, I log on a few days per months to play with fellow players of our community, but the game itself is way too hardcore for a goldsource engine and for casual players to keep up. Id rather have each and everyone of us filling up the server and actually being able to stick together, than having systems to punish noobs for staying or not being able to compete.

He is a great lost to the community, even if some stories came up in the past, it always happens when one is truly dedicated to the game for such a long time, no one here can say that he also didn't have a positive inpact to this game

I'm actually impressed that all this time, he has been to the side of pretty much every players of the community, he did his part in alot of the maps we are playing today, helping new mappers get started and explaining msc's way of mapping even to experienced mappers. For I do not have the patience to do so, nor have it to explain the games to new players, as the signs in Edana are not really usefull at explaining the actual game mechanics and you get no help or directions on where to go once you get out of it. Back in the days, even if you were only level 10-15, you could still help higher level players without having a negative inpact on the game, this needs to be back.

Man, this took forever to write with my bad english, but I hope I made clear some points that should not be forgot.

 

[Orochi]

The fact that everything on the high-end one or two-shots people is indicative of a larger flaw that has wormed its' way into MS:C's game design, giving rise to a chain of problems. Wall of text incoming.

Due to the limitations of the game engine and MS:C's own scripting engine, complex AI isn't possible, at least not in any sort of efficient manner. The more complex you make an opponent's AI, the laggier the game becomes as a result since more processing power is needed to drive that opponent. Normally this isn't a problem, as computers are usually fast with this sort of thing. However, this falls apart when we throw MS:C's scripting engine into the mix. Using a scripting engine vastly increases the strain put on system resources and CPU because you've added another layer of abstraction; instead of code simply running on the CPU, you're forcing all your instructions and such to run through some other system which itself runs on the CPU, increasing the amount of resources needed. A good C/C++ compiler has all sorts of code optimizations in place to make even the sloppiest code run somewhat better, which our scripting engine lacks. MS:C's scripting engine was never very efficient to begin with, but that didn't matter back when MS:C just began; there were few monsters and things for the most part ran fine. Now however, we're using that scripting engine for far larger purposes than it was intended, and the AI suffers.

But of course we still need to try and present some sort of challenge to the player. And so we've gone the route many games of our type have gone: give the enemies some powerful attacks and gobs of HP to compensate. Not the best way to do it but still a solid strategy; a lot of MMO games use this for their enemies. However, the introduction of death penalty negation items like the Armor of Bravery makes this fall apart. For those with these items death is meaningless, a slap on the wrist. Thus, there are no penalties for failing at a boss, you can simply run back through the level and wail on it endlessly until it dies; since a normal boss has moves that only might kill you if you don't apply the correct strategy, bosses are simply lootbags waiting to be smashed open.

Obviously this presents zero challenge. But we've already introduced the items, and the grandfather clause hits hard. So what do we do? The only thing we can do; make the enemies hit inordinately hard in an attempt to kill players before they can do any lasting damage. Thus the challenge is now staying alive long enough to inflict some sort of damage on the enemy or boss in question before you invariably die.

And that's how MS:C's combat got the way it is, in a nutshell. Rest assured we'll be avoiding creating a situation like this in MS:S. You want to increase survivability, make death matter again so the difficulty on bosses can be lowered.

 

[Thothie]

Due to the limitations of the game engine and MS:C's own scripting engine, complex AI isn't possible, at least not in any sort of efficient manner.

As per usual these drama threads wander all over the place but... What the hell? The AI, or lack there of, has nothing to do with boss difficulty. The bosses are as difficult as intended. Like most games, in most cases, their chambers offer no exits and favor them so strongly they don't need any AI, beyond point-nose-at-target-and-fire.

The only problem comes in when folks think they should be able to solo a boss designed to take down four players stronger and more organized than they are. That comes up, mostly, because unlike most MORPG's, we don't have an intuitive leveling system. No amount of AI fixes a lack of perception on the player side. That's where MSS can fix this - not by additional AI, but by providing an actual level.

But our AI, as retarded as it sometimes seems, is amongst the best I've seen in the genre, especially in terms of dynamic navigation. It doesn't use any cheap tricks, like teleporting straight to you out of frustration, or hitting you from any distance, regardless of obstacles (with a few buggy exceptions), such as those you'll see in most games of this sort.

Even if I had all the resources in the world, I couldn't build a better AI. Indeed, most of the problems in the AI, are from the bits of it that are on the code side and the engine side, trying to make it do things that it shouldn't (which leads to the occasional spin or twitchiness). This is because the base Half-Life AI running underneath requires nodes, and failing that, pancakes into walls, if it can move at all. It also lacks proper "whiskers" which is what makes our monsters - and all HL1 monsters - get stuck on corners. Those bits are all handled code side. Then there's the lack of sliding-box physics that help monsters so much in games under other engines.

In those games where you do see "smart" monsters, most of it is illusionary. They have map cues to cause them to play certain animations when they reach certain locations. Monster AI's, sadly, haven't really changed much since the days of Doom I. It's more about the model than the code now. We have the functionality for that sort of thing, but not a united team of dedicated modelers and mappers working together to figure what they want to do where, which is what that sort of thing requires - not coders working on "artificial intelligence", but artists working together.

Now however, we're using that scripting engine for far larger purposes than it was intended, and the AI suffers.

No... The AI's better than it's ever been. It used to be that monsters would always move directly towards the player, regardless of what might be in the way, rather than moving towards where it last saw its target, and that monsters would be stopped by the tiniest knee-high tables or slopes, and they couldn't hit you at all if you jumped on their heads. ...and the AI isn't using much more resources than it did originally either. Even those few monsters who can do really smart seeming things - like magically judge the distance required to jump onto a cliff and land next to you, don't require much more in the way resources to do so.

What's killing the CPU, is mostly the sheer amount of information we've tossed into the game in the form of media through items, in addition to all the new features we've added. It's just all much more than the engine was designed to deal with, so it's constantly operating at its breaking limit.

And no, bosses aren't hitting harder to deal with folks wearing AOB or whatnot. They're hitting harder for the same reason every new tier of bosses has hit harder, because the players they are designed to deal with are stronger and better defended. Same as in every MORPG expansion on the planet and in all of history.

Anyway, I don't post very often, but aren't we supposed not to talk about in-game stuff on the forum? What is strong, what isn't and where they are? I am pretty sure Evaan made it pretty clear back then and that it was mentioned in the forum rules, but whatever.

Back closer to topic at least... That's never been the case, except where Team Whine isn't allowed to discuss XP/balance that doesn't work in their favor (and they know who they are). Suffice to say, drama thread is drama thread, so we'll even let that slide here. There's a reference to spoilers, like telling someone exactly where they can find a specific item, or how to solve a specific quest, but that's about it.

As for the rest of Truewarrior's post, those are among the reasons I was trying vote this process down, but I of course was immediately smacked down with the simple statement of fact, that what little constructive work he has done, over the years, pales in comparison to the damage he's done in that same period of time. I really had hoped that would change, but it shows no signs of doing so. :\

 

[zeus9860]

there are no penalties for failing at a boss, you can simply run back through the level and wail on it endlessly until it dies

You are so wrong in so many ways, i advise you to double check that, unless you are speaking about easy maps that aren't even a problem for your lvl range.

Team Whine isn't allowed to discuss XP/balance that doesn't work in their favor (and they know who they are).

Yo don't forget item buffs, that's also on the list. I swear, this term you use to call people who have the balls to come here and discuss about things seems rather a retarded way to insult the community itself, by now you should know that:
-At some point, new players will "whine" about something, even if its not brought in the forums, trust me, this whining crap you are bringing on about in the forums is just a small fracture of the real deal.
-If people weren't scared to type sh!t here or even bothered making forum accounts to discuss said things, you would be amazed on the amount of people that would come in and "whine" about things you dont like to hear about.

I've seen many new players come and go, they left a message saying that the game lacks alot of reasonable things some of which, we "Team whine" had to come up with in the forums for them, one good example is the heavy crossbow, there's more examples on this case. These unreasonable things usually are: lack in diversity of items, nerfing without bringing the community in between, crap experience when comparing tier maps (usually the higher the map, the worse it becomes), lack of motivation to keep on playing.

I know this might sound way too much, but you should take into account some of the suggestions people come up with more often rather than keep most things to yourself and the devs, one good thing you did recently was the phlames thread to discuss how he would work out, which in the end turned out better than most people expected, which is a good thing in the end... Basically make more threads to discuss new content (maps, items, new enemies, even xp and nerf), what would people like to see and what not, discuss about an item nerf, the community should have impact suggesting a end result on the nerfs aswell.

 

[Gorynych]

I wish to request information regarding this subject. Is there any information that the Dev's can share with us that do indeed prove that J-M was a cheater.
I don't wish to argue with the developers on this - as I know neither you, J-M or me want that. I just want proof, or information to show he was a cheater. Regardless that I think he isn't a cheater, some evidence should back it up.

I'm speaking of CHEATS, not exploits.

 

[zeus9860]

In seven years of continuous claims to be mapping, what have we seen from J-M? Let's see... Four cheat maps... And then, one map, where he replaced a map we already had, that I had to in turn spend hours combing cheats out of, and at least another removing/replacing all the anti-developer commentary in the easter eggs he put in there. (Hence "I <3 Shurik3n", etc - nvm the fact that his easter eggs make up 75% of the map's entities, being more interested in using the map to attack devs, rather than adding to game play.)

I want to banish these lies from the world and have therefore uploaded the original map source from 2009. See the facts for yourself.

Link.

This is the original islesofdread2 source, as once sent to someone.

I challenge you to:

1) Find one or more cheats
2) Find "all" the anti-developer commentary in the easter eggs

It is true that there's a moving plaque near the Half-Life monorail thing that says

You've slain Maldora
100 000 XP awarded

Next to that there is no anti-developer commentary and there has never been. Furthermore, there are no cheats in islesofdread2 and have never been. This is the original source, last modified on the 14th of May, 2009.

The only differences between this source and the version in-game, are as follows:
Someone:
- removed twelve env_beam entities (to make the map less crashy, none of the beams did damage by the way, as you can easily see for yourself)
- removed the map title and map description for whatever reason
- replaced the "100 000 XP" plaque with a plaque that says "I [heart] Shurik3n"

But NOONE spent "hours combing cheats" out of this map. Ever.

Also a quick word on the entities in this map:

                 solid   point-based   all entities (sum)
Playable area      183           283             466
Secret areas        51           108             159
Total              234           391             625

75% of all entities are used for the easter eggs...? I don't think so. Do the math and see the truth.
I'll admit that the amount of entities used in the secret areas (159 total as you can see) is beyond rediculous but I intend to release an updated version someday without these big-ass secret areas. That is, if someone stops sending blatant lies into the world...

islesofdread2 remake, copyright J-M v2.5.5 (2009 - 2010), original idea/original map version copyright Dridje (2008)
You are free to distribute this map source.
You are not free to distribute the lies that circulate around it.

 

[Thothie]

That's the last time J-M will be posting in the forums via proxy, but I can tell ya, that's not the map source I was given, and 75% of the resource intensive entities are in the secret areas, and he's not counting the dozens that activate and effect said areas in the play field, not that it matters - just shows where the priority was. (Granted, I'm not sure if all the cheats were deliberate, some just seemed to be very odd monster clipping decisions.)

Yo don't forget item buffs, that's also on the list. I swear, this term you use to call people who have the balls to come here and discuss about things seems rather a retarded way to insult the community itself, by now you should know that:
-At some point, new players will "whine" about something, even if its not brought in the forums, trust me, this whining crap you are bringing on about in the forums is just a small fracture of the real deal.
-If people weren't scared to type sh!t here or even bothered making forum accounts to discuss said things, you would be amazed on the amount of people that would come in and "whine" about things you dont like to hear about.

Coming in here and complaining is not enough to get you assigned to Team Whine. A systemic and constant attack on anything and everything that might weaken your character while ignoring any and all advantages you've been given while threatening the devs or the game itself in the process, is.

Actually, SFAIK... J-M was the last active member of Team Whine, or at least, no one else from that field has posted in ages.

but you should take into account some of the suggestions people come up with more often rather than keep most things to yourself and the devs

90% or better of every change we've made in this game has come directly from community demands, suggestions, and provided materials. This is a community built mod. More so than any other.

Now, folks aren't going to vote to nerf themselves anymore than they will to tax themselves, but most of the times we have nerfed something, we asked the community for ideas on to how to go about it (such as with the Phoenix Armor, and the AoB, and several other lengthy discussions). Granted, for every nerf we have laid down, in that fashion or otherwise, there's been a thousand or more power boosts, but folks like J-M make it seem as if we deliver nothing but nerfs in every patch, so whatchyagonnado....